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Next year, you should put a 13 SEER inplace of your 14, and run it for a year, and then the year after that, install a 15 SEER 2 stage and see how it does.

After all, You need somthing to do with all that money.

Funny you said that we have a customer that went from a 13 seer we installed not that long ago thinking his savings would be a land slide guess he come here first "he has the money he's rich" so we installed a RUUD 16 seer two stage and he said he average savings on his electric bill for the past 4 months has been $8 a month so he has got back 32 dollars of his xxxxxx he spent for the new system. I started to tell him I told you so but he don't care when your rich you can do things that don't make sense unlike some of us poor folks.

You know what he said? he was laughing and said well that's a little over $100.00 per year now if I can live to be 150 I should come out ok.

Last edited by Mr Bill; 06-24-2008 at 12:57 PM.

__________________________________________________ _______________________“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards". -Vernon Law-

LOL.. I wouldn't advise anyone to rip out a working 13 SEER and replace it with a 14 or 15 SEER to save enough money to get a ROI.

I sell them as what they are, comfort units. 2 stage with a VS blower is a comfort unit.
8 to 12 bucks a month less then a 13 SEER is about right for here too in cooling season.
And we don't have squat for a cooling season compared to your area Bill.
People buy them for comfort.
And that is what they do provide.

Funny you said that we have a customer that went from a 13 seer we installed not that long ago thinking his savings would be a land slide guess he come here first "he has the money he's rich" so we installed a RUUD 16 seer two stage and he said he average savings on his electric bill for the past 4 months has been $8 a month so he has got back 32 dollars of his xxxxxx he spent for the new system. I started to tell him I told you so but he don't care when your rich you can do things that don't make sense unlike some of us poor folks.

You know what he said? he was laughing and said well that's a little over $100.00 per year now if I can live to be 150 I should come out ok.

IMO One thing you might oughta take into account, is the way TX electric rates have been moving upward lately. Usually a homeowner tells you his bills in dollars not KWH. And this June has been a hotter month than any I have been tracking since 2003, so energy consumption will do likewise. Just thought I'd mention that.

IMO One thing you might oughta take into account, is the way TX electric rates have been moving upward lately. Usually a homeowner tells you his bills in dollars not KWH. And this June has been a hotter month than any I have been tracking since 2003, so energy consumption will do likewise. Just thought I'd mention that.

Best wishes -- Pstu

And I totally understand what your saying, but for me personally if I were not in the business and I spent the kind of dollars he did, my expectations would be that the new a/c system would make the meter run backwards. That would be the kind of savings that would justify me spending that much money for comfort. Heck I was raised in a home were the only a/c was you raised the winders and turned on the big fan in the ceiling in the hallway.

__________________________________________________ _______________________“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards". -Vernon Law-

All the research that I have done leads me to agree with gary_g & Mr Bill.

Well, if the customer has a lot of money & wants a Cadillac, then that would be what I would install.

However, first I would tell them what I believed to be the best investment for them. I would want satisfied customers' therefore, we need to level with them.

As they say, SEER results will vary depending on your specific conditions.
A properly sized 14-SEER with the Copeland Scroll compressor & a TXV, along with an adjustable differential setpoint t-stat would fit the bill for me.

I don't know how well the 2-speed compressor work. I know that if you have an oil return situation you better make sure you have the suction line trap & then the riser sized right to get he needed velocity at both speeds.

Is a plus 20-SEER going to get that SEER in your customer's specific conditions?

I would always want my customer satisfied with their level of investment & with the equipments' performance expectations.

What is the lowest SEER that you can get the 2-stage in?

When I install a 2 stage 15 SEER in place of a 12 SEER, and drop the cooling bill by 8 to 12 bucks, that is 25% of the cooling bill for many of those homes.

Those homes that can raise the temp a degree or 2 because of the lower humidity, see higher savings, 20 bucks or so.(Amount of savings also depends on the size system required).

Pull up the weather info for my area, and you'll see we don't have much of a cooling season.

When sized right, I think the 2-stage should work real well, I was only concerned about oil return in some applications on the low stage, however, the engineers have probably resolved any issue in that regard.

Sized right, the 2-stage should eliminate a big share of run-time-cycles that were not long enough.

Yes, my problem is that I have retired for too long now, & no longer have experience in the field with the new high SEER & the 2-stage systems.

I respect you & those in the field with on hands experience with these units, when you say they get the job done for your customers', I respect your experience with those units.

But to answer the OP's original question I feel yes 18 seer is overkill, but of course that's just my opinion as you will find many opinions here, personally I think when they went past 10 seer it all went down hill. but you can thank your Daddy Uncle Sam for that move.

__________________________________________________ _______________________“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards". -Vernon Law-